Landscape Plans for a Split-Foyer Home

Split foyer homes are often built on sloped lots.

A split foyer typically means the home is built on a sloped lot, so all the rooms can't be set on the same level. When you enter a home with a split foyer, you face stairs that lead to bedrooms or public living spaces. The lot may have required significant grading. When landscaping for this type of home, choose plants that tolerate slopes and relatively poor soil.

Add Welcoming Color

Dwarf forsythia (Forsythia "Courtasol") is a compact shrub that grows to only 3 feet tall and spreads about 3 feet out from 18-inch stems that gracefully curve back toward the ground. It grows well on slopes and tolerates poor soil in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 5 through 9. When planted in front of a split foyer home, dwarf forsythia provides a bright burst of color with golden leaves and peach-colored flowers, making the entry sunny and attractive.

Good Beside A Path

When welcoming your guests toward your home, choose a low-growing plant that softens the edges of your pathway and will thrive given the slope and poor soil. Platt's Black brass buttons (Leptinella x "Platt's Black") thrives even in the least fertile conditions, growing quickly and bouncing back after being stepped on, mowed, played over or having the dog romp over it. This hardy ground cover grows only 2 inches high and spreads quickly, so blocking it with a pathway controls its growth. This varietal also provides dramatic color with black and green leaves that mimic tiny ferns. It grows well in USDA zones 4 through 9.

Add Fragrance

Create scented borders at the edge of your lot, near where the water drains away from the slope, with French lavender (Lavandula stoechas). This fragrant, compact shrub blooms profusely and for long periods, growing well in USDA zones 8 and 9. With gray-green foliage and deep purple flowers, this shrub emits the refreshing scent of lavender when you brush against it, enhancing your garden. French lavender requires soil that is somewhat fertile and drains well.

Add Texture

Incorporating tall plants into your landscape adds visual texture to your garden. Use trees that provide a variety of colors and aren't messy, to avoid having issues with berries and pits strewn through your garden. Timeless Beauty desert willow (Chilopsis linearis "Monhews" P.P. #11,078) grows well in full sun in USDA zones 7 through 9. It offers a multitude of benefits to your garden, acting as a screening device for pool equipment or fences, growing lightly fragrant flowers and tolerating drought conditions once established. This specimen also grows a variety of flower colors, offering several choices to support your color palette.

About the Author

Carolyn Williams began writing and editing professionally over 20 years ago. Her work appears on various websites. An avid traveler, swimmer and golf enthusiast, Williams has a Bachelor of Arts in English from Mills College and a Master of Business Administration from St. Mary's College of California.